Red State Religion: An Interview with Robert Wuthnow

Red State Religion: An Interview with Robert Wuthnow June 27, 2012

Red State Religion: Faith and Politics in America’s Heartland

by Robert Wuthnow
Princeton University Press, 2012

Robert Wuthnow is the Gerhard R. Andlinger ’52 Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University. He also serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of Religion & Politics. A prolific scholar, Wuthnow has written extensively on religion, culture, and civil society. From global Christianity to religious diversity, from small town America to fear of terrorism, Wuthnow’s research interests span the gamut.

His latest book, Red State Religion: Faith and Politics in America’s Heartland, comes but a year after his previous book, Remaking the Heartland: Middle America since the 1950s, and somewhat picks up where the latter left off. Kansas, as Wuthnow describes it, has historically been a bastion of small-town America, home to proud families dedicated to fiscal conservatism, smaller government, and their local church. Having voted Republican more consistently than almost any other state in the country, Kansas is “red state America par excellence,” as well as “a leading player in national controversies about religion and politics.” One might think of the state’s push for Prohibition in the nineteenth century, its schools that are battlegrounds for creationism and intelligent design, its public opposition to Roe v. Wade, or the murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller on the steps of his Wichita church in 2009.
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